New York Plays the NCLB Testing Game
On January 02, 2016, I wrote a post about former US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s departure from the US Department of Education (USDOE).
In that post, I included a letter dated December 22, 2015, written to state superintendents by Ann Whalen, whose temporary title is, “Delegated the authority to perform the functions and duties of Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education.” In the letter, Whalen tells state superintendents that they had better deliver on testing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB)-mandated 95 percent of students in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school, just as NCLB requires.
According to Whalen, it isn’t good enough for the states to plan to assess the 95 percent of students; the states better deliver the scores no matter if parents prefer not to have their children forced into taking federally mandated tests.
Of course, this has the makings of textbook dysfunction in adult relationships; Whalen’s putting states on the spot for the actions of parents is similar to a relationship triangulation in which one adult makes an agreement with another adult, and as part of that agreement, Adult Two must guarantee some action on the part of Adult Three, who has no direct agreement with Adult One, even as Adult One holds the greater advantage than Adult Two (and certainly Adult Three) in the deal.
In her letter, Whalen makes it clear that in her temporary, delegated US assistant secretary of education capacity, she plans to either withhold or redirect NCLB funding for states that did not have that 95 percent of students tested in 2014-15:
If a State with participation rates below 95% in the 2014−2015 school year fails to assess at least 95% of its students on the statewide assessment in the 2015−2016 school year, ED will take one or more of the following actions: (1) withhold Title I, Part A State administrative funds; (2) place the State’s Title I, Part A grant on high-risk status and direct the State to use a portion of its Title I State administrative funds to address low participation rates; or (3) withhold or redirect Title VI State assessment funds.
New York was one such state that did not have the federally-expected 95 percent test New York Plays the NCLB Testing Game | deutsch29: